onhwy61: as is usually the case, your post is well-written, tho i find your reasoning and conclusion somewhat disturbing. first, the so-called "audiophile community" is not close to being as monolithic as you describe. witness this site. witness the disagreements, often heated, more often super-heated. second, bose has the market share it enjoys because it is a master of marketing, not because its products are now any "better" in any sense than those you might buy at much lower prices. bose began by marketing to the folks who read "audio" and "stereo review" (sadly, i'm old enough to remember when it was called "hifi review," and i had a subscription). do you recall that there was a whole quasi-hippie subculture back in the early to mid-70's that sold macrome nets that allowed you to hang your pentagonal bose boxes from the ceiling? ( coincidentally, i met dr. omar bose around 1979-80, when i worked for the ftc and enforced the old "audio output rule". his company ran a national ad that was blatantly violative of the rule, which was pulled after i made my usual big brother threats.) when bose was "outed" by the likes of j. gordan holt, it switched its marketing to a wider audiance, still playing on dr. bose's "connections" to mit (the univ., not the dreaded wire). later it went "direct" with ads in "parade" and "readers digest," etc. now, bose has its own stores in damn near every shopping center of note in the usa. it has well-trained salesfolk, as is perfectly described by tubegroover. bose is a marketing paradigm that is likely emulated in the "practical" exercises required of mba candidates from wharton to stanford. that ought not make it any more admirable than a political candidate who runs on the looks of his wife and carefully selected soundbites that have nothing whatever to do with important political issues. i'm sorry, onhwy61, but i simply cannot agree that we must "honor" bose because it is the predominant choice of the great unwashed any more than we should honor those scoudrels in congress who got there, to paraphrase h.l. menkin, 'cause noone's ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the american voter.